1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a vacuum deposition system. More specifically, the present invention relates to a vacuum conveyor system for transporting substrates within a vacuum environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Glass substrates are being used to fabricate active matrix television and computer displays, or for solar panel applications, among others. In a television or computer display application, each glass substrate can form multiple display monitors each of which contains more than a million thin film transistors.
The processing of large glass substrates often involves the performance of multiple sequential steps, including, for example, the performance of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) processes, physical vapor deposition (PVD) processes, or etch processes. Systems for processing glass substrates can include one or more process chambers for performing those processes.
The glass substrates can have dimensions in the range of, for example, about 370 mm by 470 mm up to about 1870 mm by 2200 mm. Moreover, the trend is toward even larger substrate sizes to allow more displays to be formed on the substrate or to allow larger displays to be produced. The larger sizes place even greater demands on the capabilities of the processing systems, which are growing in size and capability as well to handle the larger substrates.
However, the current production equipment is getting more costly. For example, cluster tools suitable for vacuum processing of large glass substrates, e.g., 1 m2 and larger, require a relatively large floor space and are very costly. As such, the incremental cost of adding additional equipment to the production line to increase throughput is very expensive.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved system for processing substrates.